A Shropshire Lad
Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner, & Co., Ltd., 1896.
First edition, first issue, with the paper label in Carter's A state. 12mo. Original cream parchment over paper covered boards with paper title label to spine lettered in red. Inscribed by Housman to the front endpaper, "A. E. Housman / 3 Oct. 1918. / Cambridge." A near fine copy with just a little dustiness to the covers and a little tanning to the spine. An exceptional copy, seldom seen in such clean condition.
Housman's celebrated 63 poem cycle poems which was published with an initial printing of 500 copies, of which only 250 form the first issue. It would appear that initial sales of the book were modest, but the book soon acquired cult status amongst young readers at the start of the twentieth century, to the extent that by 1911 "the average yearly sale was an astonishing 13,500 copies" (Peter Parker - Housman Country), and it is never been out of print since.
As W.H.Auden put it, for his generation "no other poet seemed so perfectly to express the sensibility of a male adolescent".
Housman inscribed very few copies at the time of publication (a mere four are known) and during his academic career at Cambridge saw little reason to sign copies, meaning that signed copies are now seldom seen in commerce.
Frances Horner (1854-1940, notable patron and collector of Pre-Raphaelite artists, bookplate designed by Burne Jones. It is likely that Housman inscribed the book for her via her nephew David, who was reading classics at Cambridge, where Housman was professor of Latin at the time of the inscription); Mildred Bliss (Dumbarton Oaks bookplate); Simon & Judith Nowell-Smith (bookplates).
Carter-Sparrow-White 2, Hayward 305
Stock ID: 45461
£30,000.00
